jobless mom living off child support
(Context: In the Philippines, it’s commonly expected that parents continue supporting their children until around 22 years old or until they finish college/studying.)
My mom (54F) is unemployed and currently living off the support my dad sends for me (20F) and my brother (17M): around ₱30,000/month (about USD 500) intended for our living expenses (rent, utilities, food, etc.). I can’t really work yet because I study college pre-med (7am - 7pm, 5 days a week).
Aside from the ₱30,000 monthly support, my dad also pays for my college tuition, my brother’s high school tuition, our allowances, our phones and gadgets, and pretty much everything we own.
My parents have been separated for more than a decade, and my mom has also been unemployed for over a decade. She is healthy, physically capable, and not on maintenance medication, but she still refuses to work.
She also has another child (13M) with a different man. That child’s father only pays for tuition and does not provide living support. My mom refuses to ask him for additional financial support.
Since she doesn’t work, the ₱30,000 my dad sends gets divided among all four of us: me, my brother, my mom, and her younger son. It’s no longer enough. She uses it to support herself and her child too, and we often struggle financially. Most times, we don’t have groceries, no food, no toiletries, nothing.. I’m always hungry and I’d often go through 12 hrs at school without food, trying to save my school allowance.
Whenever she does provide food, she makes sure we feel guilty by reminding us that she had to borrow money from other people.
Growing up, I never felt like she was a very good mother. She doesn’t clean the house, constantly complains about everything, and rarely puts effort into improving our situation. She’s also the type of person who thinks she’s never wrong. I honestly didn’t get many of my values from her. A lot of what motivates me is wanting to become someone different from her.
Last night, we argued because she was smoking in the bathroom. She got angry and told me that I don’t get to tell her what to do and said, “This is my house,” even though she doesn’t pay for it. She’s also been smoking for as long as I can remember.
Recently, because of the Iran war and the impact on my dad’s income, we’ve started struggling more financially. Even with that, my mom still refuses to work and gets offended whenever I suggest it.
I raised this concern with my dad, and he said he wants to move me and my brother into a dormitory or boarding house so he can send a smaller amount of money directly for us instead.
But I’m scared this will anger my mom and make my two older brothers (my dad’s other children who no longer live with us) turn against me and my dad. I’m worried she’ll play the victim and make them blame us.